


After Umbara

by JediOhtaku



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Death, Friendship, Oneshot, Soup, dark to fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 07:26:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10238966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JediOhtaku/pseuds/JediOhtaku
Summary: After Rex has a bad nightmare, Ahsoka is there to cheer him up.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I've been writing a lot of stories about Rex lately, and decided to publish one. It's not great and kinda short, but I like it. *shrugs*

_The sound of blaster shots filled the air as did the cries of dying men. The sky was a dark indigo and thick fog covered the hilly terrain. The only light came from the planet’s exotic plant life and the lasers from the soldiers’ blasters. Despite the tough conditions, Rex compelled his men to keep pushing forward. They had to reach the capital and help General Kenobi’s team. He also feared what General Krell would do to them if they didn’t complete their task, again. “C’mon men!” Rex yelled, hoping to motivate the men to keep moving._

_Suddenly Rex stopped in his tracks; he couldn’t move. Willing his feet to work wasn’t effective; something was keeping him tied down. Rex turned to Fives to call for help, but realized that the Arc Trooper was no longer next to him. In his place was an Umbaran soldier. Panicked, Rex scanned the area, and realized that his troops had all been replaced with the local militia. Determined not to be defeated, Rex aimed his pistols at the Umbarans and began to shoot. Surprisingly, the soldiers did not fire back. Rex shook away his unease; it was their lives or his, and he was not willing to so easily get killed._

_Cold laughter filled the air. Rex recognized that laugh: it belonged to General Krell. Rex once again tried to remove his foot from the ground, and this time he was successful. An ‘aha’ echoed in Rex’s head, but was shut up when Rex raced over to one of the Umbarans he had killed. He had a bad feeling about this. Krell laughed again, “It’s too late clone!” He said ‘clone’ with distaste, as if clones were considered lower beings in his mind. “I have won!” Once again Krell’s voice began laughing, harder than the previous times. Dread gathered itself Rex’s gut, as he slowly got down on his knees._

_Hands shaking, he removed the helmet on the dead soldier, but instead of finding an Umbaran, he found the lifeless eyes of another clone, a brother. Rex’s heart was overcome with anguish, as soldiers left and right began dropping to the ground, dead; everyone of them clones. Within moments, Rex found himself in a battlefield covered with clones, and he was the only one among them still living. He buried his head in his still shaking hands, before a darkness fell over him._

Rex woke with a start, drenched in sweat, chest heaving. A dream, he realized, It was just a dream. Though Rex knew that his dream had been based on real events. A few days prior--or maybe it’d been yesterday, Rex couldn’t be sure; everything had happened in a blur--the substitute Jedi General that Rex had been serving, General Pong Krell, had tricked his men into shooting at and killing each other, in an attempt to gain the Separatist leader, Count Dooku’s favor. Luckily, Rex had figured out the vile plan, and had managed to stop his brothers shooting, but not before many lives were lost, one of which being Rex’s good friend, Waxer. After regrouping, the clones had attacked Krell and after a clever idea from clone trooper Tup, they had managed to capture him. They kept in in the brig of the airbase they had captured, until receiving word that the Umbarans were coming back for their base. Jesse and Tup decided that Krell was too dangerous to be kept alive, so Rex along with Fives accompanied the two to execute the turned Jedi. In the end, Rex had been to afraid to pull the trigger to end his superior’s life, and Dogma, another clone who had previously been imprisoned for conspiring with Krell had been the one to kill the Besalisk.

Trying to settle back into sleep, Rex rolled over in his bunk, adjusting his arms into a pillow for his head. He closed his eyes and stayed still hoping that sleep would roll over him, but after waiting for several minutes, he found that his mind was still racing. With a quiet sigh, he slipped out of his bunk and tiptoed to the door of the ship’s barracks, not wanting to wake up the other men who were sleeping peacefully. Once he was inside the ship’s main hall, he slumped onto the wall and let his shoulders relax. Rex hadn’t realized how badly the mission on Umbara had shaken him. He’d been on several draining and scarring missions before, yet this one seemed to weigh on him more than the others.

Worrying will get you nowhere, Rex chided himself. Hoping to distract himself, he thought of places he could go. Rex decided that the mess hall would be the place with the least amount of people milling around. He stood up and walked softly down the hall to the cafeteria. The room wasn’t far from the barracks, so Rex found himself there in no time.

The automatic doors slide open to reveal an empty room, well almost empty. Only one figure sat at one of the long white benches, which were dirty from no one bothering to clean the food that had split or been dropped. A bowl of soup sat on the table, but from the looks of it, it was untouched. “Commander,” Rex called out softly, hoping to attract the attention of Ahsoka Tano. When she didn’t respond, Rex realized that her eyes were unfocused, as if she was spacing out. Rex approached her slowly, not wanting to startle her. He lightly tapped her shoulder when he got close enough, causing her to come back to reality. Ahsoka’s eyes darted around in alarm, searching for an enemy. Rex placed a hand on her shoulder to calm her down, “It’s ok,” he said quickly, “It’s just me.” Ahsoka’s eyes found Rex, and the tension in her body went away.

“Don’t scare me like that,” she wiggled the spoon from her soup at the clone in a chastising way. The goofy smile that was spread on Ahsoka’s face told Rex that she was pleased to see him, and he forced himself to smile, thinly. Despite his best efforts to seem positive, Ahsoka managed to see right through him. Her smile faded and was replaced with a look of concern. “What’s wrong?” she asked delicately.

Rex sighed deeply before answering, “A bad dream,” he said simply. He hoped Ahsoka wouldn’t press him on the details. To his relief, all she did was nod sympathetically. Rex awkwardly made his way to the bench across the table from Ahsoka. He sat down and placed his elbows on the table. Ahsoka crossed her arms on the table as well and buried her chin in the folds. Neither of them had anything to say to break the awkward silence.

After several minutes, Ahsoka got bored of the silence and sat up, “Ugh.” Rex blinked and then raised an eyebrow at her. He’d just been dozing off when she’d made the frustrated noise.

“Ugh?” Rex repeated curiously.

“Yes ‘ugh,’” Ahsoka said firmly to a still very confused Rex. Noticing Rex’s confusing, she laughed and explained, “I got a bowl of soup thinking, ‘oh I’m hungry! I should get soup!’” she said the last part while making gestures her hands and talking in a funny voice. Rex couldn’t help but smile. Ahsoka continued, “But it turns out that I wasn’t hungry, so now I have bowl of soup, and I don’t know what to do with it.” She pouted and rested her chin in her cupped hands.

“Well,” Rex said tentatively, “We could give it to someone.” Who though? He thought. Who would want a bowl of soup at 2 am in the morning? Ahsoka seemed to be wondering the same thing; her white painted eyebrows were furrowed in thought and she had her classic dubious look on her face.

“Well,” she said finally, “We could shove it down Master Skywalker’s throat.” Rex was appalled at the suggestion.

“And why would we do that to him?” he asked, a bit harsher than he intended. Ahsoka either hadn’t noticed or hadn’t cared, because her face still had an evil grin on it. Rex adored Ahsoka and her Master, Anakin Skywalker, but sometimes they were truly terrifying people, and not just on the battlefield.

Ahsoka didn’t answer Rex’s question, and instead began muttering things to herself while making small hand gestures. “Alright!” she said out loud, before scooping up the bowl of soup in her arms and trotting down the hall to Anakin’s quarters. Rex feebly reached out a hand to stop her, but the Togruta was already out of reach. Rex shook his head and sighed.

“This is exactly why these two are not allowed to have prank wars,” he muttered to himself, before following Ahsoka. He became so preoccupied with trying to knock sense into Ahsoka that he forgot about the bad dream that had been haunting him only a minutes before.


End file.
